Professor Jane Stapleton

From 2016-2022 Jane Stapleton was Master of Christ’s College, Cambridge. She is a Distinguished Professor at the Australian National University and was formerly the Ernest E. Smith Professor of Law at the University of Texas at Austin. She is also an Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College (Oxford), an Honorary Fellow of St John’s (Cambridge), an Honorary Bencher of Gray’s Inn and Honorary King's Counsel.

Professor Stapleton initially trained as a scientist, receiving her undergraduate degree with honors from the University of New South Wales and her first Ph.D. from the University of Adelaide. In 1978 she resigned her postdoctoral position at the University Chemical Laboratories in the University of Cambridge to train as a lawyer, first at the Australian National University and later at Oxford, where she obtained a second Doctor of Philosophy degree.

Her research interests center on: the private law of obligations; liability and compensations systems; comparative law; and the philosophical foundations of the common law such as causation, duty and good faith. She has published widely and her work has been frequently cited with approval by appellate courts in many common law jurisdictions, in academic publications and Reports of Law Commissions.

She was elected to the ALI in 2000 and was elected to the Council in 2004. She has served as an Adviser on the Restatement Third, Torts: Liability for Economic Harm project and on the Restatement Third, Torts: Liability for Physical Harm project. She is also on the Members Consultative Group for the Restatement Third, Torts: Intentional Torts to Persons project.

EDUCATION: University of New South Wales, B.S.; Australian National University, J.D.; University of Adelaide, Ph.D; University of Oxford, DPhil and DCL.